The last Chapter explores crowdfunding, a method of raising money from a large number of people via the internet. Crowdfunding is a new financial tool that allows ordinary investors to get in on the ground floor of startup investing. Crowdfunding solves several problems that are common in financial markets by capitalizing on the wisdom of the crowd by sharing information freely and leveraging online reputation. Equity crowdfunding is now a legitimate means to raise capital under the JOBS Act. However, this Chapter discusses how excessive regulations, such as the income threshold requirement, the inability to resell illiquid securities, and unrealistically low funding limits, hamper the most promising features of equity crowdfunding. Therefore, regulators must proactively design legislation that harnesses the benefits while mitigating costs, and further promote the attractiveness of open, public, and non-secretive markets.

This chapter covers two important topics, namely equity crowdfunding and central bank digital currency. Equity crowdfunding was once a popular idea in China and almost gained formal recognition of the regulator. However, due to various reasons, equity crowdfunding failed to be written into the 2019 Securities Law. This means that in the foreseeable future, equity crowdfunding is unlikely to be legally permitted as a special Fintech sector in China. A very recent major development of Fintech in China is the Digital Currency Electronic Payment project (DC/EP) initiated by the Chinese central bank. Unlike Bitcoin and other types of cryptoassets, DC/EP has the backing of the credit of a state and is based on a more complicated system of operation. China is at the international forefront of developing central bank digital currency (sovereign digital currency), which has attracted a lot of attention. However, the development is still at an early stage, and only time will tell how the DC/EP will operate in practice and what effects it will bring to the people in China and beyond.